Extending evidence-based medicine

Edited by: Prof Trisha Greenhalgh

The science of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is more than 20 years old. Unsurprisingly the movement has produced both an established orthodoxy and dissenting voices. This series of papers, whose authors include both ‘orthodox’ and ‘dissenting’ perspectives, considers how EBM might be extended beyond the epidemiological focus of its founding fathers. We invite comments from readers and anticipate that this series will provoke an important contemporary debate on what EBM is and what it should become.

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has always required integration of patient values with ‘best’ clinical evidence. It is widely recognized that scientific practices and discoveries, including those of EBM, are val...

Randomised trials can provide excellent evidence of treatment benefit in medicine. Over the last 50 years, they have been cemented in the regulatory requirements for the approval of new treatments. Randomised ...

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is maturing from its early focus on epidemiology to embrace a wider range of disciplines and methodologies. At the heart of EBM is the patient, whose informed choices have long be...

The ability to do online searches for health information has led to concerns that patients find the results confusing and that they often lead to expectations for treatments that have little supportive evidenc...